NORWICH – Convicted child sex trafficker Dean Sacco appeared in Chenango County Court Wednesday after a federal judge gave him life in prison to be sentenced to another five years for his crimes in the City of Norwich.
Sacco, 50, of Jersey City, and his co-defendant Linda O’Connor, 47, appeared in federal court in Binghamton yesterday and received lengthy sentences from U.S. Senior District Court Judge Thomas J. McAvoy.
O’Connor and Sacco were found guilty after a four week federal trial of child sex trafficking and producing child pornography along with other federal charges in the seven-count indictment.
Sacco, who denies having sex with the girl, received life in prison. O’Connor received 30 years.
Sacco received a additional five-year concurrent sentence from Chenango Supreme Court Judge Kevin M. Dowd after pleading guilty to first degree sexual abuse.
“He is a pedophile and he is a danger to the community and every child he comes in contact with. I don’t say this often, but it will be a great pleasure to the community to know that he will be removed for the rest of his days,” said District Attorney Joseph McBride.
Sacco made his own remarks to the court, saying, “I am offended that Mr. McBride would call me a pedophile,” explaining that he had always been honest about his attraction in a book he wrote in 1998.
The book, which was written while Sacco was serving a separate nine-year prison term, is called ‘American Desperado: An Autobiography of Failure and Dysfunction.’ In his book, Sacco admits that as a teenager he was sexual deviant and entered girls’ bedrooms, one of them his sister’s, and touched them.
Sacco said his encounter with the 12-year-old girl was coincidental and it was nothing more than “stupid little frivolous hugs and kisses that I did.”
Judge Dowd corrected Sacco on his remark, “It was more than hugs and kisses. It was oral sodomy,” he said.
The female victim, who is now 14, told police she was threatened if she refused to comply. The charges in the complaint took place between 2006 and 2007, when she was as young as 11.
The case, which was originally investigated by the Norwich Police Department, was taken over by the Federal Bureau of Investigation once it was learned that the victim was transported across state lines for the purposes of selling her for sex.
Sacco and O’Connor had their names first tied together by Chenango County authorities in November of 2006, following a complaint by the victim to the Department of Social Services that she was “very uncomfortable” around Sacco and found him “creepy.” Following the complaint, Family Court Judge W. Howard Sullivan issued an order to O’Connor to keep the victim away from Sacco.
However, on March 22, 2007, the Norwich Police Department arrested O’Connor for not obeying the order after receiving a second complaint from the girl that Sacco had raped her. O’Connor was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and criminal contempt.
Following O’Connor’s arrest, police investigators focused on Sacco and had the victim place a controlled call to him while he was in New Jersey.
“Sacco admitted in substance, that he had sexual contact with the victim,” said Special FBI Agent James T. Lyons Jr., in written testimony.
Sacco was later arrested in New Jersey on March 19, 2007 after apparently attempting suicide, Lyons said in the federal complaint.
Sacco was then transported back to Chenango and charged with several sex crimes, including three counts of first degree rape.
McBride said Sacco was the landlord at the victim’s residence and exploited the girl sexually in exchange for rent.
O’Connor was arrested later on Feb. 10, 2008 on the charges that the two were eventually convicted of in federal court.
The allegations in the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. District Court in Binghamton included a long history of abuse regarding the victim at the hands O’Connor, who allegedly reared the 11-year-old girl into a life of sexual molestation and unwitting prostitution. The charges also included the young girl being used by O’Connor in her personal relationships with other men besides Sacco.
The complaint offers testimony that O’Connor was present at many of the rapes and often participated in the acts with the victim. The complaint also charges that she recorded several of these instances. One of the instances cites that O’Connor received $150 in exchange for the girl as she remained in the room and ate a doughnut. One of the rapes mentioned in the complaint said it purposely arranged on the girl’s birthday as a “gift.”
Sacco is no stranger to prison and previously served a nine year sentence after he hijacked a tour bus on its way to Atlantic City in 1991 along the Garden State Parkway.
Sacco attempted to rob the 44 passengers at gun point but his attempt was thwarted by the driver, who tackled Sacco and wrestled the gun away from him, shooting Sacco twice. Attempting to flee, Sacco then leapt over a a guide rail and fell 20 feet onto a highway below, breaking his leg. While in prison, he wrote his book.
The DA’s Office said O’Connor would not be appearing in local court because she was not prosecuted at the state level and that Sacco’s sentencing was effectively the end of the case for local authorities. The two will now begin their federal prison terms.